Frustrating Meeting Re: Call Lights

[RNDave]

We had a mandatory meeting yesterday with our manager, RNs and patient care techs. This was the third meeting in 3 months, if I recall correctly, about answering call lights in a timely manner. The problem cases are call lights not answered within 3 minutes and some taking as long as 45 minutes to get answered. At the end of the meeting the gist seemed to be A) "Try and do a better job" and B) "Think about how to improve things". My frustration is that shouldn't management provide direction and/or resources leading to improvement? We have a problem it seems and apparently we, the staff, can't figure it out! I'm still new, but I'm wondering, is this the nature of meetings in hospitals, or is it appropriate to care and want to actually resolve issues?

Cheers,

Dave

[squeakykitty]

I don't know what to say, since I'm not there and don't know enough about the situation. I only have some questions though.

1. Is there enough staff to answer them?
   
2. What kind of work ethic does the staff have?

[RNDave]

1. Is there enough staff to answer them?
   
2. What kind of work ethic does the staff have?

Good questions. The general consensus is that there isn't enough staff most days. I would say that most of us have a strong work ethic. I get frustrated with a couple PCTs who don't anwer their phones. To add more data, ours is a 32 bed medsurg/oncology unit. With 30 or less patients we will have 5 RNs and sometimes an LPN. We will have anywhere from 3-6 PCTs depending on the census. Our patient population tends to be frail elderly.

Dave

[squeakykitty]

If the staff is calling off a lot, are there coworker problems or teamwork problems?

[RNDave]

When I mentioned PCTs not answering their phones, I meant the cordless phones we all carry at work, not home phones. I don't think teamwork is a problem. I should mention, if it's not clear, that I'm not a manager. I'm not aware of any coworker problems.

I guess my main point with the original post is that meetings should help resolve issues. This one didn't other than it has made me want to help fix the problem and not simply discuss it.

Dave

[squeakykitty]

I hope the issues get resolved. I worked at a LTC that had a high employee turnover that I think was due to the lack of teamwork and short staffing. From what I've read elsewhere on Allnurses, sometimes a bad employee will drive the good ones away.

[LeesieBug]

As others said, I don't know the situation on your floor.

On my own unit, what I can say is that answering of call lights really needs to be a team effort. There is always someone at the nurses station at any given point...if it is ever empty it is for VERY brief spells. Where we work whoever is in the nurses station at the time picks up the intercom to find out what someone needs and either does it themselves, or tells the nurse/assistant assigned to the pt. Even the secretaries will answer the bell and pass onto a nurse as soon as they see them that a patient needs assistance...or will page the nurse if the patient needs help NOW.

Even if you pop your head in a room to make sure someone is not dying, and let them know you will be with them ASAP as long as they are stable. It only takes a minute to make sure someone is not in crisis and state, " I'm sorry, I'll have someone with you in a few minutes" It really is unacceptable to have a call-light going off for 45 minutes.

I think the best thing to do is for the charge/management to crack down on people who are not answering the bells even though they are able.

I think nurses can do a lot to help cut down on how often the call lights go off, period, by attempting to address any other needs while in the room doing care, and also doing a quick rounding when you have a second. If the pts know that someone is at least peaking their head head in every hour, they are less likely the be riding the call-light for non-urgent needs/questions (yeah, I know, SOME pts are on it every 5 minutes, regardless...but it does help with most).

On the note of feeling frustration over meeting not being helpful, I HEAR YA', and I sympathize. Our staff meetings tend to be terribly unproductive, generally turning into gripe sessions with no-one offering constructive solutions or feedback:uhoh3:

[RNDave]

Thanks, Ms. Bug. I ran across a Medscape Nursing CE article that mentions some of your points. Rounding on the hour is one of the main ones. So, at the very least for my patients, I intend to round frequently and handle things proactively. BTW, I gave the article to my manager.

Cheers,

Dave